The sequel is coming!

Yay! I've just heard that Disney Hyperion will indeed publish the second book in the series, currently called "Mousemobile – When a Nation Hits the Road." 


Did you ever share an RV with 2,243 mice? That's part of it. Due out relatively soon - summer of 2013!

Fan mail

All fan mail is good, but it's especially delicious when readers admit to a degree of addiction, like these:

“I’ve read it and love it. I couldn’t put it down.” (Katie, age 9)

“Mousenet was a great book! I couldn’t stop reading.” (Sarah, age 10)

“I started to read Mousenet with more of a sense of duty than anything else, but before long I was totally engaged.” Richard (age 72)

Full disclosure: Richard is my brother, which helps explain the sense of duty.

Rodents!

Rodents should know I’m on their side. I’ve been living with a brain full of them for years. Indeed, after so long in their company I am part rodent. So do they have to declare war on our new plantings?

Until we ripped out the lawn and put in less thirsty plants – a plan that surely satisfied the Mouse Nation’s environmental concerns – the rodents and I got along fine. I didn’t bother them–indeed, I kept many of them very well fed, with the vegetable scraps on the compost heap. And they had the grace to stay out of sight.

But in recent weeks the balance of nature has tipped. Someone, probably a rabbit, has been chewing certain plants down to the nub. And voles have built criss-crossing freeways just below the surface of our beds, sometimes charging straight through the roots of new plants with unfortunate results.

Someone suggested pepper spray, but all that did (apparently) was to improve the rabbits’ dinner, raising our Jacob's Ladder from fast-food to two stars in the bunny Michelin guide.  Chomp chomp.

So on Christmas Eve, with death in my heart, I cruised the local garden stores for poison.

Maybe it was the season that softened my heart. Maybe it was because none of the stores had appropriate poison. I decided to try a kinder, gentler approach, one that would simply urge the rodent population to go elsewhere, no questions asked. This involved a double-barreled strategy. You put crystals of fox urine around the tastier plants, implying they have a hidden bodyguard ready to pounce. And you sprinkle castor oil granules over all the rest.

I couldn’t help imagining the conversations. Rabbits maybe daring each other to dash in and have a bite. Voles looking at each other suspiciously, as evil smells waft through their burrow. (“Hector, did you do that?”) Maybe moving to another part of their vast condo, then another– pursued by evil odors–before deciding to pack up and leave.

Do they know that a neighbor two doors down is planning to devote her whole yard to vegetables? Maybe I should put up a sign. . . 

Cynsations

The mouse just went  up on Cynthia Leitich Smith's very splendid blog. 

It's Raining Mice!

The ‘Books and Authors’ site for December 20th makes an interesting observation: "Every couple of years a strange phenomenon occurs within children’s publishing; a number of books will appear on the same subject without any identifiable trigger." 

And for 2011 the subject is mice. 

At the launch party, I mentioned that when my agent started shopping ‘Mousenet’ to publishers she found one or two who liked the book, but already had their mouse books for the season, thank you very much. I’d no idea that it was raining mice quite so heavily. This year there are at least five mouse books - which might not be remarkable were it not for the fact that four of these are by authors at the top of the tree. Three are ex-Newbery winners, no less (‘Secrets at Sea’ by Richard Peck, ‘Bless This Mouse’ by Lois Lowry and ‘Young Fredle’ by Cynthia Voigt). Meanwhile Carmen Agra Deedy, the author of ‘The Cheshire Cheese Cat,’ (which has mice as heroes) has won at least 45 awards for past books.

I’m delighted that 'Books and Authors' included ‘Mousenet’ in this exalted company-complete with a link to the website of the Mouse Nation. But what is it about those top-tier authors that led them all to mice? Are they being secretly brainwashed by the Nation’s Public Relations department, working through the clans that live behind the authors’ walls, and know everything? 

A new review

Mousenet has just been reviewed very nicely for the January issue of the School Library Journal:

"Breitrose spins an enjoyable tale as she explores the nature of friendship, highlighting the timeless themes of individuality and respect for those who are different, and introduces a good mix of memorable characters and contemporary problems. Yue’s illustrations throughout are suitably charming. Although the tale is not as complex or allegorical as Kate DiCamillo’s Tale of Despereaux (Candlewick, 2003), Avi’s “Poppy” series (HarperCollins), or Robert C. O’Brien’s “Mrs. Frisby” books (Atheneum), the novel offers mouse lovers action and suspense, and its readability makes it a good choice for those moving up from formulaic series like Geronimo Stilton’s books (Scholastic) to more complex stories."

Yay. 

Mousenet on Facebook

I've finally trained my Mousenet page on Facebook to behave. For some reason it was swallowing things that people wrote on its wall, so you couldn't see comments unless you asked, which was not cool. Now I've managed to check the right boxes, and things show up as they should–including my first direct piece of fan mail from a reader. Thanks, Noah! You can see his thoughts (and add your own) here.